Charted Space is essentially a gigantic free trade zone, subject to the vagaries of individual polities. Non-warships may travel the lengths of Imperial Space as long as they are engaged in mercantile pursuits. They are subject to inspection and must pay taxes as well as obey local laws. In this permissive environment, corporations and megacorporations thrive.

These are some of the informal economic standards found within Charted Space:

Interstellar Commerce Expectations

Name

Type

Remarks

Interstellar Banking

Stored Credit

A number of powerful interstellar banks exist including a number outside of direct Imperial influence and control.

Most of the most established interstellar banks are associated with megacorporations.

Interstellar Currency

Medium of Exchange

No interstellar currency exists throughout Charted Space. Each major race posseses its own currency associated with its major polity. As the largest and most powerful supra-polity, the currency of the Third Imperium, the Imperial Credit or Crimp, is widely accepted throughout most but not all of Charted Space.

Some of the major race societies such as the Aslan have no unified currency.

Others such as the Hivers appear to have one conventional currency for interstellar trade and another coup currency for interal use.

The Zhodani and Droyne also use unconventional currencies and markets. Trade with them may take place using conventional currencies, barter of like kind, or for entirely mysterious reasons.

Interstellar Trading

Stock Exchanges

In an era where communication is limited to the speed of travel, stock exchanges are far more influential on a planetary level than on a subsector, sector, or galactic level.

Nevertheless, several important stock exchanges exist, most linked to rich, very prosperous sector-level trade regions.

As technological civilizations develop, so does trade. Trade aids various groups by exchanging goods and services in a mutually beneficial manner. The agency of trade is one of the primary mechanisms by which early civilizations share goods and knowledge.

Almost all sophontsocieties discover that the principles of scale of economy and comparative advantage hold true for their civilization and begin to aggregate their markets into larger and larger trade blocs. The great manufacturing and trading power of the Megacorporations is a natural outgrowth of these trends.

Economy was once studied as the discipline of Political Economy and most economies are still organized at the polity level.

The smallest functional economy on the interstellar trading stage is the world-state, an entire planet, or equivalent, that is able to trade as a unified bloc. Balkanized Worlds do not trade with the same clout.

Many of the major Trade Cartels started as guilds or corporations and later grew into megacorporations. A cartel is a sort of large, coordinated trade bloc aiming to control or dominate trade within a specific region through collusion.

A few, such as the Amec Trade Protectorate grew into separate polities governing vast aspects of life within their zone of control. The Third Imperium will generally look the other way as long as taxes are paid, the X-boat lines flow, and the Imperial Navy has absolute freedom of passage and port.

Some cartels have very shady connections to organized crime while others are entirely overboard within the loose guidelines of interstellar law and convention. And the Third Imperium is well known for the loose guidelines, conventions, and generalized permissivity of the largest feudal confederation found within Charted Space.

Trade Guilds

Trade Organization

The Trade Guilds regulate or attempt to control certain areas of commerce, usually concerning specific technologies or business segments. Sometimes the guilds function as subsidiaries of the megacorporations and at other times, they compete against them. Much like many others on the interstellar stage, just about anything goes, and local sectorwide realities may greatly vary by astrographic region.

The Interstellar Merchant Service is a multisector trade organization dedicated to the movement of goods and services throughout Charted Space. It is associated with the Third Imperium and a number of megacorporations as well as influenced by them, but is not controlled by them. It is governed by a multispecies board of sophonts and functions as a sort of neutral third-party interstellar organization in the same manner as the Starport Authority, which was founded by the Imperium, but in effect, acts through many associated branches for areas outside the Imperium proper.